Full Text

1 Rise, O Salem, rise and shine;
Lo, the Gentiles hail thy waking:
Herald of a morn divine,
See the Dayspring o’er us breaking,
Telling God hath called to mind
Those who long in darkness pined.

2 O how blindly did we stray,
Ere this Sun our earth had brightened;
Heaven we sought not, for no ray
Had our wildered eyes enlightened:
All our looks were earthward bent,
All our strength on earth was spent.

3 But the Dayspring from on high
Hath arisen with beams unclouded,
And we see before Him fly
All the heavy gloom that shrouded
This sad earth, where sin and woe
Seemed to reign o’er all below.

5 Let me, when my course is run,
Calmly leave a world of sadness
For the place that needs no sun,--
For Thou art its light and gladness,--
For the mansions fair and bright,
Where Thy saints are crowned with light.

Author: Johann von Rist

Rist, Johann, son of Kaspar Rist, pastor at Ottensen, near Hamburg, was born at Ottensen, March 8, 1607, and from his birth was dedicated to the ministry. After passing through the Johanneum at Hamburg and the Gymnasium Illustre at Bremen, he matriculated, in his 21st year, at the University of Rinteln, and there, under Josua Stegmann (q. v.), he received an impulse to hymn-writing. On leaving Rinteln he acted as tutor to the sons of a Hamburg merchant, accompanying them to the University of Rostock, where he himself studied Hebrew, Mathematics and also Medicine.
During his residence at Rostock the terrors, of the Thirty Years War almost emptied the University, and Rist himself also lay there for weeks ill of the pestilence. After his r… Go to person page >

Translator: Catherine Winkworth

Catherine Winkworth is "the most gifted translator of any foreign sacred lyrics into our tongue, after Dr. Neale and John Wesley; and in practical services rendered, taking quality with quantity, the first of those who have laboured upon German hymns. Our knowledge of them is due to her more largely than to any or all other translators; and by her two series of Lyra Germanica, her Chorale Book, and her Christian Singers of Germany, she has laid all English-speaking Christians under lasting obligation."
--Annotations of the Hymnal, Charles Hutchins, M.A., 1872… Go to person page >

Tune

First published in Johann Crüger's Praxis Pietatis Melica (1653) without attribution, JESUS, MEINE ZUVERSICHT was credited to Crüger (PHH 42) in the 1668 edition of that hymnal. (The later isorhythmic RATISBON is related to this tune; see 34.) JESUS, MEINE ZUVERSICHT is named for its association w…